Category: Sanctification/Spiritual Growth

I just want to share some Scripture today on God owning us as Christians.

for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:20 NLT

God paid a high price for you, so don’t be enslaved by the world.

1 Corinthians 7:23 NLT

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.

1 Peter 1:18-19 NLT

But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

1 Peter 2:9 NLT

And they sang a new song with these words: “You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Revelation 5:9 NLT

Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood.

Today we will be looking at these two verses in Philippians that seem almost contradictory but in reality are complimentary.

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Philippians 2:12-13 ESV

Paul states the first duty he had in mind with these words: ‘… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling …’ (v. 12).

The apostle is not asking the Philippians to work for their salvation. If we are in doubt about this, we only have to read a bit further. He will soon give details of his own futile efforts to earn the favour of God (3:1–11).

Those who advocate salvation by works do so only because they fail to understand that God demands perfect righteousness of us. When this point hits home, it is obvious to us that we cannot be saved by works, because, no matter how many good works we do, they cannot elevate us to the level of perfect righteousness.

Paul tells his readers to ‘work out’ their salvation. His meaning becomes clearer when we look at his next phrase: ‘… for it is God who works in you …’ (v. 13).

Salvation is God’s work. We cannot save ourselves. Only God can enlighten our minds to see the truth and move our wills to accept the truth. The very faith with which we receive his work of salvation is not something we can produce. It is rather God’s gift to us. He gives us both the salvation to receive by faith and the faith to receive the salvation (Eph. 2:8–9). No one who finally enters eternal glory will have one shred of credit to claim. God will not share his glory with another.

Paul was calling the Philippians, therefore, to work out what God had worked in. They were to live in such a way as to manifest that God had done his saving work within them. They were to show outwardly what God had done inwardly.

While we must not believe in salvation by works, we must most certainly believe in a salvation that works. In other words, we must not fall for that lie of the devil which suggests that one can truly be saved and not manifest it by good works.

This was, of course, the issue with which James was so urgently concerned when he wrote: ‘… faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say,

“You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?’ (James 2:17–20).

Paul made the same point—that true salvation manifests itself in good works—in these words to the Ephesians:

‘For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them’ (Eph. 2:10).

We cannot leave this point without noting that the ‘working out’ for which the apostle calls is to be done with ‘fear and trembling’ (v. 12) and also with confidence (v. 13).

With the phrase ‘fear and trembling’, the apostle was calling his readers to go about their Christian lives with a sense of awe and wonder. The apostle was calling them to manifest in their daily living the salvation of the living God, the salvation that had been planned for them before the foundation of the world. They were part of something that was far more massive than they could imagine. Mundane Christian duties dance and shimmer with delight when we learn to coat them with privilege. And living for the Lord becomes easier when we understand that it is the Lord for whom we live.

Lest his readers should feel overwhelmed by the thought of having to work out their salvation with fear and trembling, Paul added a word of assurance that would give them confidence:

‘… it is God who works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure’ (v. 13).

The God who had done the work of salvation within them had not abandoned them. He was still at work in them, giving them both the desire and the power to work out their salvation. If we have no desire to live for the Lord, we have no right to say we know the Lord.

Source:

Ellsworth, Roger. Opening Up Philippians. Opening Up Commentary. Leominster: Day One Publications, 2004.

Today I want to share a short video from John Piper on the supremacy of God in all things!

The title of the blog post can make you squirm because you are probably thinking to yourself, “gee no my life is messed up, I can’t possibly make God look good.” But remember the gospel and also the work God is doing in you,

“For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.”

-Philippians 2:13 ESV

Tomorrow I will write and comment more on the verse below so stay tuned! Let’s hear Pastor John Piper share on how we make God look good in our lives.

Everything in your life. Everything you say, everything you do, think, you feel, all the relationships you have, it all has to do with God.

God has ordained your existence and everything you do, everything you say, you feel, everything you think, and all the relationships you have been ordained so that they may make God look good.

You are on the planet in order to say things, do things, think things, feel things, be in relationships, in such a way, as to make Jesus Christ look like he really is namely supremely valuable!

Do I devote my life, down to the details, the way I study, what I eat, what I drink, what I wear, how I do my hair, what movies I watch, what websites I go to and how long I stay there, what car I drive, where I live, how I do my work, where I work, what jokes I tell and like to hear, what kind of language I use, who my friends are and why, and how I spend my leisure time. Are you asking how do all those things spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all people? How do I do all those things so that I make Christ look really great? So that I do it in a way that communicates He is more valuable to me than all those things, than anything else!

Let your light so shine- Let your holy life, your pure conversation, and your faithful instructions, be everywhere seen and known. Always, in all societies, in all business, at home and abroad, in prosperity and adversity, let it be seen that you are real Christians. Let every follower of Christ, and especially every preacher of the Gospel, diffuse the light of heavenly knowledge, and the warmth of Divine love through the whole circle of their acquaintance.

That they may see your good works- The proper motive to influence us is not simply that we may be seen.

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 6:1 ESV

But it should be that our heavenly Father may be glorified. The Pharisees acted to be seen of men, true Christians act to glorify God, and care little what people may think of them, except as by their conduct others may he brought to honor God, yet they should so live that people may see from their conduct what is the proper nature of their religion.

Glorify your Father- Praise, or honor God, or be led to worship him. Seeing in your lives the excellency of religion, and the power and purity of the gospel, they may be won to be Christians also, and give praise and glory to God for his mercy to a lost world.

We learn here:

1. That religion, if it exists, cannot be concealed. You can’t hide it!

2. That where it is not manifest in the life, it does not exist. If you don’t have it, you don’t have it!

3. That “professors” of religion, who live like other people, give evidence that they have never been truly converted. There must be a distinction in your life to those who aren’t Christians.

4. That to attempt to conceal or hide our Christian knowledge or experience is to betray our trust, injure the cause of piety, and to render our lives useless. John Piper said it best, Don’t Waste Your Life.

5. And that good actions will be seen, and will lead people to honor God. If we have no other way of doing good – if we are poor, and unlearned, and unknown yet we may do good by our lives. No sincere and humble Christian lives in vain. The feeblest light at midnight is of use.